


take our pulse

by icoulddothisallday



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, Hate Crimes, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Loss of Limbs, M/M, News Media, Pride, Recovery, Survivor Guilt, The 2016 Orlando Shooting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:32:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7421839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes thinks he might never remember how to be proud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take our pulse

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written as a reaction to the Orlando Pulse shooting, in order to deal with some of my own feelings.  
> Bucky is the victim of a wide scale hate crime, not dissimilar from the Orlando Pulse shooting. He deals with feelings of guilt and fear in the reaction, and often feels that he shouldn't have those reactions (that he should be more proud). This is NOT my judgement. You should always do what feels best and safest to you. Take care of yourselves and respect your triggers.

_ Before  _ Bucky had been proud. He had been unashamed of who he was. He’d always considered himself one of the lucky ones, because his parents accepted him and were proud of him and never batted an eye and his older sister tried to set him up with guys from work and his niece drew him pictures of rainbows which Bucky hung on his fridge. He put rainbow bumper stickers on his car. He liked his skinny jeans and tight t-shirts and his jean jacket with all his LGBTQ+ pins and he was proud of himself. 

_ Before  _ Pride was his favorite time of year. He liked to get dressed up and let Natasha dust glitter on his cheeks and paint his lips some obnoxious neon hue. He liked walking among people who understood and he liked standing proud for who he was. He liked how buoyant the air felt, how he felt seen and celebrated and adored. He liked what a show it was, how big and brave everyone got. How you raised your chin a little higher and lifted your fists in the air and walked unafraid in heels and thigh high boots and converse and army boots and bare fucking feet. 

_ Before _ Bucky liked to end the parade in dancing, pressed up close in a sweaty mass, the music pounding in his blood. He liked to compete with Natasha to see how many shots of vodka they could do before Clint dragged them out of there, back to their apartment, where they watched Queer as Folk or the L Word and didn’t talk about how Natasha’s parents don't speak to her, didn’t talk about Clint’s dad. They were young and they were proud and they were loud. 

But that was all  _ before.  _

*

Bucky doesn’ remember much of the night. It’s November and they’re out, celebrating Natasha’s birthday, sharing margaritas at their favorite club til almost one. Clint and Natasha tap out early because they have to work in the morning, but Bucky’s pounding with the need to dance and grind and slide into the music and maybe find someone to make out with in a dark corner (or maybe not, because the dancing’s always enough). When the screaming starts, Bucky almost doesn’t notice because he’s pressed up against this gorgeous man, sinewed dark hands sitting on Bucky’s hips and leading them into the beat of the music. 

When Bucky finally notices, the fire is already raging. People are pressed together in a panic, voices call out for friends and partners and people push and run for the emergency exit. Bucky stumbles through the crowd, his head a white mass of terror. 

Wakes up in the hospital two days later, burns scorched down his ribs and left arm mostly gone. His parents tell him it was a hate crime. Natasha and Clint fill in the details - the names his parents wouldn’t know, the faces that were lost to flames and hate and hellfire. They tell him about the perps who sets the fire, about how they’ve been put away, about the backlash in the community. 

But if Bucky hadn’t been there - hadn’t been proud and out and loud, maybe he’d still have his arm. Maybe when he closed his eyes he wouldn’t hear screams rising on flames. 

*

So Bucky stops going out. He stops doing anything for a while, actually, because he doesn’t understand why he’s alive and so many are dead and his body screams with terror when he goes outside and he thinks that someone will know and will hurt him. He takes down his niece’s drawings and puts his pins away and covers his pride stickers in neutral things, things no one can take offence to. 

He stops going to work and stops seeing his friends and stops going to the gym and doesn’t talk to strangers or go to unfamiliar places or ride in taxi cabs. He always feels like people are looking, their eyes prickle on his skin as they plan and judge and prepare to punish him for his perceived sins. He can’t stand the feeling of being judged anymore. He used to relish in it, in knowing that he persevered over everyone’s judgement of him, but that was before the fire tore away his skin and pulled away his strength and left him bare and aching. 

His mother forces him to see therapists who tell him he has PTSD and depression and force him to take medication. And parts of it do get better. He builds his life back together bit by tiny bit. He apologizes to Clint and Natasha for disappearing, he visits his family, he goes to physical therapy. Other things are harder, but he can go to a new place or ride in a cab if Clint or Natasha are with him ( _ if only he’d gone home with them that night _ ). 

But some things don’t get better. Bucky replaces his jean jacket with a black hoodie and his skinny jeans for goodwill jeans that don’t fit quite right, and he wears his t-shirts baggy and dark. He grows his hair long so no one can see his face, sticks a cap on his head and  _ passes _ . He doesn’t correct people’s heteronormative assumptions, doesn’t give them lectures and spiels about acceptance and pride and feminism and intersectionality. He keeps his rainbows locked in his closet and tells himself he’s okay. 

It’s alright to be a little more subtle, a little less in your face. Yes, it’s 2016. Yes, it’s New York. But it doesn’t hurt to play it a little safe. There are still people out there who would hurt him if they knew ( _ he knows, can never forget).  _ He stays away from the community, too, because it hurts too much. He wants to be who he was. He feels like a sham. He feel selfish and horrid and lonely. 

*

It’s pride again. Bucky’s skin is jumping with nerves. Natasha and Clint had tried to convince him to come out with them, but he can’t stand the idea. He isn’t proud, not anymore, and would only disgrace the people who were there and brave and out and proud and loud. He is only a shadow cast by bigger, brighter flames. He’s the aftermath. He’s the broken pieces left behind by hate and anger. 

Bucky tries to stay off social media and the internet and the tv, but it doesn’t last. He turns on the TV, channel hops, lands on Ellen. She’s hosting Captain America. Bucky sighs a little and settles deeper into the couch. Ellen always makes him laugh and Captain America is nice to look at, at the very least, and the hero of Bucky’s childhood besides. 

He’s talking when Bucky lands on the channel - “You know, things were really different in my day. Like today - it’s Pride and people get to go out and celebrate who they are. And I have to say, that’s really one of my favorite things about the future - how free everyone’s allowed to be.”

Bucky’s chest tightens and he feels enormously guilty. God, he should be out there with his friends but instead he’s sitting here like a coward. Far better people than him have fought for the ability to be seen. Who is he to cower in fear?

“I understand that you had a few words to say about the fires that occurred in November,” Ellen leads. She’s got her serious voice on, and the Captain answers in kind. 

“Yes, yeah, I do. The people who set those fires - they were cowards with hate in their hearts. And, y’know, I’ve seen how people have pushed back afterwards. How there’s even more pride and strength and camaraderie than ever before. And well - that’s so important. And really, this is past due, but I think it’s important that I lend my name and my strength to the community I belong too.”

Bucky sits straight up, eyes glued to the television. Cheers and gasps and questions erupt from the audience on the screen and the camera pans over them, catching shock and elation and confusion.

“Captain Rogers, do you mean to say that you identify as LGBTQ?” Ellen asked, mildly. She must have known. Bucky can’t process. His heart is pounding in his ears and his hands are clenched into fists. Captain America was his hero when he was a little boy - he’d had action figures and posters. When he got older, he started to understand (thought he understood) that who and what Captain America stood for would never accept him. There was no place for gay little Bucky Barnes in Captain America’s vision of the country. 

Apparently he was wrong.

“Yeah,  yeah I am.” The Captain sat up a little straighter, fixed his gaze right on Ellen. “You know, we didn’t have so many words for everything back in my day and most of the words we did have aren’t acceptable now. But I’m Queer. I’ve always been queer. It wasn’t a thing I could talk about, wasn’t something you were allowed to share, not then.”

“That must have been very difficult,” Ellen says softly. Bucky scrabbles for his phone and calls Natasha on automatic. She picks up immediately. There is cheering and singing and shouting in the background and suddenly Bucky aches to be there. 

“Bucky? Everything alright?” Natasha asks, shouting over the noise. 

“Natasha - Captain America. He’s comin’ out.”

“What?”

“On Ellen, right now. He just said - fuck, he just said he’s queer.”

“Shit, no way! Clint, Maria, guess what?!” Bucky can only imagine the news spreading through the crowd, the way the cheers will pick up and the screams will get louder and the happiness will bubble over, the happiness and the pride and the strength that are seeping out from somewhere deep and hidden in Bucky’s soul. 

He turns his gaze back to the TV. 

“It was,” The Captain remarks. “And it wasn’t, cause that was just the way it was, y’know? I didn’t know I could have any different. And well, it was Brooklyn.” Ellen laughed and the Captain quirked and adorable, heart-wrenching smile. 

“Even then, there were people trying to be proud, trying to have a community - lovin’ each other even though everyone around us told us it was wrong.” Captain America rubbed a hand through his hair and looked down sadly. “Y’know, I lost friends to hate and it makes me so sad and mad that people are still losing their loved ones to that same hate. And I thought, y’know, it’s time. This is my fight too. This is my community. And I want to be able to stand by their sides during Pride and march in the parade and let my friends paint my face with rainbows. I mean, didja know that Tony - uh, Tony Stark, he made me a rainbow Captain America suit when I came out to him.” Ellen laughs and the Captain grins and a warm sort of pride flows over Bucky’s wounds.  “That’s the Captain I want to be, I think that’s the Captain America needs right now and I can’t stand back anymore and do nothing.” The captain’s eyes are fierce and strong and it’s like he’s talking right to Bucky.

Ellen reaches forward and lays a hand on his arm and says, “You know, Captain Rogers, I think you’re right.”

*

Bucky might’ve woken up, but that doesn’t mean all the fear just goes away. But Clint and Natasha are by his side and they make him feel braver. The very first thing he does is hang up his niece’s rainbow drawings. His heart feels lighter. His home feels warmer. 

It’s little things, at first. Stupid shit he hasn’t been able to do - going out with Natasha when she’s wearing her ace t-shirt. Wearing his rainbow bracelet. They go into Brooklyn proper, see friends Bucky hasn’t been able to see. 

Then it’s harder things. Bucky goes back to his gym. Natasha takes him shopping. They go back to his favorite gay bar. They go to a showing of Rocky Horror - Clint wears his corset and fishnets and Bucky lets Natasha do his make up. 

It takes several months before Bucky feels brave enough to go out dancing. Clint and Natasha never push, never get angry or frustrated, and they let him set the pace. The first time out he has a panic attack and they have to walk five miles back to his place cause he won’t get on the subway and can’t take a cab. But Bucky gets up and he tries again. He thinks he won’t ever love it the way he used to, but that’s okay too. He’s older, he’s changing. He can dance with his friends in his own home, hold Clint’s hand out in public, wear his Pride t-shirts and his skinny jeans, even gets a piercing because he’s celebrating being him for the first time in a year. 

They’re out in Central Park when Bucky spots him. He feels good - he feels bright and out and proud, and maybe not quite as loud as he used to be, but that’s okay too. So he tells Natasha and Clint to wait and he jogs up to Captain America, who’s buying an ice cream. He seems so normal like this - wearing jeans and a hoodie. Bucky almost loses his nerve and then he spots the bisexual colors on the bracelet around the Captain’s wrist and he calls out, a little quiet, a little nervous. 

“Captain America?” The man turns, even bigger and brighter in person and gives Bucky a polite little smile. Bucky looks down at his rainbow colored laces and feels impossibly young. “I just wanted to say thank you. I - I was hurt in the attacks last year.” Bucky’s never told anyone that and he peeks up. The Captain looks a little sad, but he isn’t looking at Bucky with pity. Bucky gains a little courage and keeps going. “And I was real scared, y’know. I felt like I lost who I was. And when you came out and stood with everyone - well, it really helped. Gave me courage when I didn’t think I had any left. And I don’t know how I can ever thank you for that, I really don’t.”

There’s a long minute of silence and Bucky fidgets awkwardly and opens his mouth to excuse himself when the Captain speaks again.

“Let me take you out to dinner.”

Bucky blinks, thinking he’s surely heard wrong. “What?”

“You can say thank you by, uh, letting me take you out to dinner.”

“I don’t - I don’t understand,” Bucky stammered, staring at the man. Captain America blushed - actually blushed. 

“Shit, I’m real bad at this. Gosh, I don’t even know your name - but you’re real pretty, m’sorry, handsome and I’d like to get to know you better and maybe I could take you out on a date?”

Bucky stares. The Captain stares back. 

A smile starts to spread across Bucky’s face. Captain America awkwardly asking Bucky Barnes out on a date. Well, it can’t get louder than that. 

“Yes. Yes, I’d like that.”

Captain America has a smile like glitter and rainbows and pride and community and acceptance. 

 

_ fin.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](https://icoulddthisallday.tumblr.com/) if that's your thing.


End file.
